Virtual Showcases

In 2008 SIK-ISEA received the partial fonds of the Swiss painter Wilhelm Balmer (1865–1922) as a donation from the family estate. The collection includes numerous photographs of private and working life as well as individual sketchbooks by Wilhelm Balmer.

In the early 2010s, SIK-ISEA received the entire correspondence of Otto Charles Bänninger (1897–1973) as a gift from the family estate. The linchpin is Bänninger’s correspondence with the French sculptor Germaine Richier, who was married to him from 1929 until 1951.

SIK-ISEA was first entrusted with the Charles Blanc-Gatti (1890–1966) fonds in the early 1990s. A second, complementary donation followed in the mid-2000s. The abundance and coherence of this archive make it a first-class source for research into musicalist art.

These documents from the estate of Paul Bodmer (1886–1983) were gifted to SIK-ISEA by Zurich Central Library in 2017. Included among the papers are photographs, articles on the scandal that erupted over his murals for the Zurich University, and notes on his frescoes for the city’s Fraumünster church.

In 2019 SIK-ISEA acquired part of the written estate of judge Johann Friedrich Büzberger of Bern. Among the papers are many letters from Ferdinand Hodler, to whom Büzberger was a dear friend and lifelong patron. The letters date from the years 1884–1918.

The archives of artist Maïté Bournoud-Schorp, deposited with SIK-ISEA’s Antenne romande in 2005 by a benefactor whose identity remains unknown, consist of sketchbooks, advertising graphics, illustrations for periodicals and books, and work-related documents, in particular exhibition records.